THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



75 



Prisons are becoming respectable while real crimi- 

 nals are being granted immunity for destroying char- 

 acter and trying to break the strong spirit of the West 

 and humiliate and bedraggle the names of honorable 

 men. Recently Attorney General Bonaparte congratu- 

 lated the administration upon the work it had accom- 

 plished in the way of convictions for land frauds. It 

 simply shows the ignorance, of conditions, that pre- 

 vails in administrative circles at Washington. 



President Roosevelt has disclaimed the distinction 

 of being much of a constructive statesman, but he 

 avers that he "is a torchbearer throwing on the light." 

 Truly the programme he has followed in his attitude 

 toward the West is one of setting alive the fires of hate, 

 of kindling distrust, dissention, disorder, in a thousand 

 ways. 



The spirit of Americanism has become timid in- 

 stead of bold, and fearless toilers for Western enter- 

 prise have met with almost constant rebuke and hu- 

 miliation for daring to assume that they know and 

 presuming to advise, albeit theirs is the experience. 

 While the reward of incompetent sycophants is constant 

 advancement in the face of their more capable asso- 

 ciates. 



Two years ago Mr. Beard, chairman of the execu- 

 tive committee of the Irrigation Congress, succeeded in 

 converting powers which were delegated to him into giv- 

 ing ninety per cent of the time of the session at Sacra- 

 mento to the exploitation of government ideas and less 

 than ten per cent to the critics. His reward is a mem- 

 bership of Mr. Roosevelt 5 s farm life uplift commission, 

 notwithstanding his general lack of knowledge of farm 

 life and the fact that the President had no legal author- 

 ity to create such a commission. 



This commission now wisely advises for postal sav- 

 ings banks as one of the essentials for improving farm 

 conditions. It will probably approve of anything else, 

 political or otherwise, that the President suggests, even 

 to favoring some dire punishment for such fearless 

 editors as Pulitzer, Lewis, Ridder, Watterson. 



And he from California, where they grow no corn, 

 came to the National Corn Show and told the farmers 

 how to select seed corn. With all the assurance of 

 their class, they confide to us ignorant denisons of the 

 soil, the very things our fathers taught us years ago 

 and have been drilling into us for generations. 



Every step corn has taken from the parent teosinta 

 to its present splendid perfection, has been made by 

 selection of seed. My father told me the points some 

 thirty odd years ago, yet these farm life experts con- 



firm it all by assuring as fact that which decades of 

 practice and proof has only made a mere suspicion. 



But it is in keeping with the wisdom exuding from 

 several popular branches of our government. The 

 knowledge elucidated in the useful book of the forestry 

 department that twenty-seven and a half prairie dogs 

 will eat the grass from an acre of Texas soil, goes 

 far towards solving the problem of how to meet a panic. 



And, yes, erosion, let us not forget the direful ef- 

 fects of erosion. What matters it that the richest soil 

 of many of our agricultural states is the result of ero- 

 sion. It took several billions of years to wash out dirt 

 enough to make Mississippi and Louisiana. What do 

 we care? They only produce niggers and Democrats. 



Unfortunately for the theories of the government 

 experts, most of this erosion occurred long before de- 

 forestation began. The same is true of nearly all the 

 fertile valleys that are now being reclaimed by irriga- 

 tion in the trans-Missouri region. The dirt taken from 

 the rugged mountains eight or ten thousand feet above 

 the sea and carried to lower altitudes and deposited by 

 irrigation canals or otherwise where it will serve man- 

 kind by yielding harvests is a splendid thing. What 

 good is the dirt up there? While down here it fertiz- 

 izes and enriches our farms. Will it injure the moun- 

 tains by making them more rugged? It will improve 

 our agriculture by leveling up our farms. 



THE BUCKEYE GAS ENGINE. 



The Buckeye four-stroke cycle gas engine built by 

 the Buckeye Engine Company of Salem, Ohio, a con- 

 cern which has been building steam engines for up- 

 wards of sixty years, and who have recently taken up 

 the manufacturing of gas engines, is shown by illus- 

 .trations in these columns. 



The word "cycle" means a succession of events oc- 

 curring repeatedly in regular sequence, and when used 

 in relation to heat engines means purely a succession of 

 events in any single combustion chamber of such an en- 

 gine, and has no reference to the number of cylinders or 

 whether the engine is single or double acting. 



The term "four cycle" is more properly a four- 

 stroke cycle. This engine is being introduced through- 

 out ihe West where pumping is necessary for irrigation. 

 It is said to be one of the best engines in point of con- 

 struction on the market. 



The illustrations in the advertisement which is car- 

 ried in this issue in connection with the two illustra- 

 tions in our reading columns will give a comprehen- 

 sive idea of its style and appearance. 



Those who contemplate pumping for irrigation 

 would do well to write to the Buckeye Engine Com- 

 pany, Salem, Ohio, and they will, no doubt, receive 

 some very fine illustrated matter concerning this ma- 

 chine. 



